Labid ibn Rabi'a

Labid ibn Rabi'a al-Kilabi al-Ja'fari, Abu Aqil, "the well-known poet". ¹ Al-Marzubani in his dictionary describes him as a brave knight, a poet and generous, who composed poetry for a long time in the pre-Islamic period and then became Muslim. ²

When Umar wrote to his governor in Kufa to ask Labid and al-Aghlab al-Ajli what they had composed of poetry in Islam, Labid said: "God has replaced poetry for me with the chapters of the Cow and the Family of Imran." Umar increased his stipend. ² It is said that he composed in Islam only one verse, and there is disagreement about which. ² It is established that the Prophet ﷺ said that the truest word a poet ever said was a word of Labid's. ²

Abu Umar says that a verse some attribute to him is not his, but belongs to Qurada ibn Nafatha; and that his poem beginning "Surely all things other than God are vain" shows in some of its verses that he composed it in Islam. Ibn Hajar objects that it is the poem he recited to Quraysh before his Islam, in the well-known story of Uthman ibn Maz'un in the biography. ²

The views on this question are many in al-Isaba. We present them in the section on the views at the top of the page.

Ibn Ishaq relates that Arbad ibn Qays was Labid's brother on their mother's side, and gives six elegies by him after his death by lightning on his return from the delegation of the Banu Amir. See Labid's elegies for Arbad. ^{3 4}

The Sheikh distinguishes the speech of God from human speech as the difference between God and His creation, and mentions the Companion Labid ibn Rabi'a, author of a mu'allaqa, who held back from poetry after his Islam ⁵. He says his ode is among the greatest seven poems in Arab history and was hung on the Kaaba, and that the Prophet asked Labid, 'Where is your poetry?' (needs_source) ⁶. He relates that Labid said that after hearing the Qur'an he could not compose poetry, because his language felt shallow beside it, and that verse no longer ran on his tongue except like the creeping of ants ⁷.